F 685 
C43 

Copy 1 The Lecompton Constitution; 

.. ._...„ iE TO AFRICANIZE THE TERRITORIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



SPEECH 



HON. CALYIN C. CHAFFEE, 



OF MASSACHUSETTS. .^^^S 



Delivered in the House of Representatives, February 24th, 1858. 



The House being ia Committee of the Whole on the 
state of the Union — 

Mr. CHAFFEE said : 

Mr. Chairman, my constituents have grave ob- 
jections to the admission of Kansas under the Le- 
compton constitution ; and they expect at my 
hands, as their Representative, an honest expres- 
sion of their views. This must be my excuse for 
trespassing upon the time of the House on this oc- 
casion. 

The history of the Territories of the United 
States that have passed through the period of 
their gristle and growth to maturity, and become 
sovereign States, forms an important study for the 
statesman of the present day. When we reflect 
that since the present organization of our Govern- 
ment, now but sixty-nine years, we have added 
more to our territorial limits than they then pos- 
sessed ; and that from it have grown eighteen 
sovereign States, with a population now of fifteen 
or more millions, and whose wealth reaches the- 
enormous sura of two thousand million dollars, 
their importance becomes apparent ; and especially 
ia this importance enhanced and exalted when we 
reflect that the peopling of our present Territories, 
to say nothing of our future acquisitions, is not 
half accomplished. We have now remaining more 
territoiial space unorganized by any government 
than as yet occupied ; and yet the American mind 
and heart seems not to grasp thest; f')+ure com- 
monwealths in their importance or tliei: i^stiny. 

At the present hour, there are tbrf f- of ur Ter- 
ritories ready for admission into '.-io fiimily of 
States, on the same terms of exact equulity with 
the original thirteen. Why do thfj is' his, and 
why should we, the Representatives q'. i •• i ;oer- 
ican people, admit them within the r^- "^ ''''t f''>'9 
Union ? They ask this, because of t^.-- ' aflec'ion 
toward the people from whon tboy omigrateU, 
when they exchanged the refinements and culti- 
vated society of the older Slates to vjIc to better 
their condition among the sturay eo' •■ of the fron- 
tier ; and because such, they iii.'it ,=und, is fulfill- 
ing the coiripact madewith th»' u.h-.'oitants of the 



Territories, even before the adoption of our pres- 
ent Constitution, and guarantied and indorsed by 
the makers of that instrument in the first session 
of Congress held under it. They have kept the 
compact on their part, and they come back to us, 
the Representatives of the whole American people, 
and ask us to keep ours. 

I have intimated that the history of our territo- 
rial possessions and government was an import- 
ant study to the statesman of to-day ; and I have 
hinted at the reasons for this importance. And 
yet the President, in his message to this House 
on the 2d day of February, has apparently never 
read the early history of the Territory of Kansas ! 
The earliest date of his historic facta goes no fur- 
ther back than the formation of the Topeka con- 
stitution. All that preceded this instrument was 
in black letter, and hence antiquated, and so un- 
suited to the dignity and genius of this "Young 
America" Administration, or of so little import- 
ance as to escape recollection or notice of the 
Chief Magistrate. With all due deference, and 
with pardon, I cannot agree with the President 
that this history is of no consequence ; on the 
contrary, I think it is of such vast importance that 
there can be no right appreciation or understand- 
ing of the affairs and true condition and aspect of 
its interests and hopes, unless these facts, which 
to the President's mind lie buried in obhvion, are 
continually held up to the public gaze, that their 
light may help us to interpret all subsequent 
facts. 

Why, I ask the President of the United States 
or his friends who sustain his message — why did 
the people of Kansas adopt the Topeka constitu- 
tion ? Was it to " organize rebeUion," as the 
President intimates ? Was it the result of a fixed 
and settled determinatoin to live the lives of law- 
less freebooters, in violation of all law, human and 

divine? Was it a feverish restlessness impatient 
.r holesome restraint, with a desire to live, on 

1.^ jj • t of a whole people, Ishmaelitish hves, with 
I'Ui h;)td against every man, and every man's 
haua i,%."v>-.i^'- them ? Surely this cannot be true. 



\ 



The belief would, if possible, be more monstrous 
than the document that insinuates it. Men who 
desire to had lives of lawless violence do not con;- 
mit the folly of placing ihemselves voluntarily 
and by choice under written law. They ignore all 
law, and treat with contempt its officers. I re- 
spectfully submit that such has not been the fact 
•with the people of Kansas, who constructed and 
adopted the Topeka constitution. 

The bill organizing the Territory of Kansas be- 
came a law May 3u, 1854 ; and has proved the 
author of " all our woes." In the month of Octo- 
ber following, Governor Reeder arrived in the Ter- 
ritory, and oidercd an election for a Delegate to 
Congress. This election was held on ;he 29th day 
of November of the same year. At this election 
General Whitfield received 2,258 votes, 1,729 oi 
-which were found to be ilkgal ; or, in other words, 
■were placed iu the ballot-boxes by persons not 
residents of the Territory, but by peisons living 
in adjoining States, who kindly volunteered their 
sovereignty to their friends in the Territory for the 
purpose of the franchise. Here, then, it seems, 
we have a beginning; and I respectfully commend 
to the perusal of the President, House Document 
No. 200 of the fiist session Thirty-Fourth Con- 
gress. In January and February, 1855, the then 
Governor of the Territory caused a census of its 
inhabitants to be taken ; and, as its result, it was 
found that 2,905 men were qualified to vote for a 
Territorial Legislature ; and, on the 30th day of 
March, the election for members was held. Theie- 
Bultofthat election showed, not that the whole 
2,905 voters had deposited tiieii' votes, or that a large 
portion of them had done so, but that, within one 
mouth of the completion of the ce 'Sus, the vote 
■was swelled to the number of 6,309 — pro-slavery 
votes, 5,429 ; free State, 791 ; with 89 scattering, 
in all, 6,309 : legal votes cast, 1,410; llegal votes, 
4,900. Now, where did these illegal votes come 
/rovw, and how did it happen that th.^y were cast? 
I answer, they came from the border counties of 
Missouri, and were forcrd into the ballot-box by 
violence and frazid. I have not time to quote the 
proof on this subject, but must beg the Presiilent 
and his admirers to consult the document above 
quoted, and I will promise them they will find it 
rich in historic lore, and shedding a flood of light 
on this dark era iu the history of Kansas. Why, 
sir, if we are to believe this document — and who 
can disbeHeve it? — Kansas has already a history 
crowded with events that will pale the ^^ ineffect- 
ual lights'^ of many of the old States. 

The men, thus elected, assembled in the place 
indicated by the Governor and proceeded to busi- 
ness; and without stopping to characterize the 
result of their labors as history will do when she 
comes, after the passion and excitement conse- 
quent upon the question «f the times shall have 
subsided, but simply lemarking in passing that 
the Codes of Draco were mild in comparison, we 
come at once to the Topeka Convention and the \ 
Topeka Constitution. This reserved right of eil j 
free people was not resorted to till all expectation | 
of obtaining a recognition of their just claims, j 
by the usurpers of their government, had be'«i- 
hopelessly abandoned. So for f om allcviiif^^ f:Viem 
to redress their grievances through the bal!"t box, 
they were systematically aud persistently shut out 



from this means of redress. Test oaths were re- 
quired of them, and even if they had possessed 
the mtanness and cowardicj to submit to their 
imposition, they had no guarantee from the usurp- 
eis, that violence should not again be brought into 
requisition; nor that the inhabitants of the border 
counties would not again be emptied upon them. 
In this condition, and from this exigency sprang 
the Topeka Convention, which produced the To- 
peka Constitution. 

I call especial attention to the fact, that this 
Constitution, which marks the era of the Presi- 
dent's historical knowledge on the subject of Kansas 
affairs, was entirely provisional in its character — 
wholly and absolutely provisional ; that it has never 
assumed or exercised any of the powers of an actual 
government, but has simply held its organization 
in readiness, in case of its being sanctioned by 
Congress ; or, failing in that, in the alternative of 
the people being driven to a forcible resistance to 
the foreign usurpatior. and despotism designed to 
crush them out, and which might become too in- 
toleiable to be submitted to. This is the whole of 
this Topeka Constitution. True, officers were 
elected under it — a Governor, a Legislature, &c. — 
but if they ever attempted the functions of these 
offices, where is the proof of it? I deny the charge, 
and demand the proof V\ hat act is overt here? 
None. Nor can the President specify. 

The complaint of the President again.^t the 
people of the Territory, for the formation of the 
Topeka Constitution, is not without its parallel in 
the history of this country. The same complaint 
was once made against the colony of Massachu- 
setts, by George III. He had attempttd to bring 
that colony to terms of submission by repealing 
the charter, and thus destroying the colonial go- 
vernment. But to his utter surprise and conster- 
nation, with that of Birtish statesmen generally, 
the colony did not seem to be affected in the slight- 
est degree. Her voluntary associations, through 
her committees, commandtd and received the 
obedience of the people to a degree to which the 
hitherto colonial government was a stranger; and 
this without the bustle and bloodshed of a revolu- 
tion, but springing spontaneously from the people. 
And, sir, it is obedience that makes a government, 
and not the formalities by which it is instituted, 
or the name by which it is called. Do the people 
prefer, and will they yield a more cheerful obedi- 
ence to, the Topeka Constitution? Then it is the 
best constitution for the people of Kansas. And 
\ 't the President characterizes this whole Topaka 
moTement as a rebellion; and all objection to the 
rule and reign of the usurpers as ''open defiance 
of fheconstitutioaand laws." What constitution? 
Wlitt ifvs? But here is what the President says 
of t:ie message of the Governor under the Topeka 
Coi' liluiion: 

' ' ■ vry first paragraph of the message of Go- 
vern I'.il) nson, dated ou the 7th of December, to 
the ''' pexa Legislature, now assembled at Lawrence, 
civntaiDs an open defiance of the Coustitution and 
'laws of the L uited States." 

Well, what does that wicked Governor say, in 
such a defiant tone, against that palladium of our 
liberties- -that hfpeof the struggling millions of 
earth's imbn.r.!ii -ons — our glorious Constitution? 
And here the 1 'resident quotes him in all his diab 



8 



olisni of purpose and language, as a warning to 
the froward, and an encouragement to the faithful : 

"Tlie Governor says: 'The convention which 
framed the constitution at Topeka, originated with 
the people of Kansas Territory. They have adopted 
and ratified the same twice by a direct vote, and also 
indirectly through two elections of State officers and 
members of the State Legislature. Yet it has pleased 
the AdministDtiou to regard the whole proceeding 
revolutionary. " 

Here, then, we have the Governor's wicked, 
treasonable, and rebellious "defiance of the Con- 
stitution and laws of the United States;" and it is 
"open!" not secret, as if the grace of shame, and 

- some slight compunctious visitings of conscience, 
were left him ; but "open" and exposed to the 
gaze of an astonished world, and the President of 
the United States I But this is not all, nor indeed 

Jj the worst feature in the Topeka movement ; for 
the Governor, under this constitution, not only 

,' "openly defies the Constitution and laws," but 

7 they — that is, the Governor and his friends — 

" "adhere" to it. The Presidpnt says: 

" This Topeka government, adhered to with such 
treasonable pertinacity, is a government in direct 
opposition to the existmg grovernmeut prescribed 
and recognized by Congress." 

Now, Mr. Chairman, the President has made a 
discovery of one of two things — either a new kind 
of " treason,^'' or of " pertinacity." To adhere to 
the Topeka government with some kind of "/)er- 
tinacily" I suppose would not be incompatible 
with its running parallel with "the existing gov- 
ernment prescribed and recognized by Congress ;" 
but to adheie to it with such "■ (reasonable pertina- 
city" brings it into "direct opposition" to it. But 
what government has " Congress prescribed" for 
Kansas? I had thought that under the new,im- 
proved patent for governing the Terr tories, they 
(the Territories)'" were to be left perfectly free to 
form '.heirown institutions;" that Congress had no 
prescriptions to make, and if they did, the patient 
was under no obligations to swallow them. So 
that these men are standing upon their reserved 
rights and the "organic law." They have simply 
taken the government at its own words, and pro- 
ceeded to " form their own institutions in their 
own way," and not in the way of any other men, 
or body of men. But the President argues in his 
message that their yii\y is " illegal," " revolution- 
ary," " reb dlious," and " treasonable." I answer, 
if the people of theTerritoiies arc to be left '■'■■per- 
fe lly free,'''' whose office is it to interfe/e to pre- 
vent them from exercising that •' /)ej-/ec< freedom?" 
Such interference is a violation >.f the spirit and 
letter of the Kansas act, passed as a great " paci- 
ficatory measure," to bring peace to a distracted 
country ! that was to be the harbinger of good 
will throughout the Republic! the angel of that 
political millennium that would bring healing upon 
his wings 1 And he who should intervene to ar- 
rest or disconcert the people in their freedom in 
" adjusting their institutions in their own way," 
would be held justly responsible for all the dis( ord 
and illfe-^ling that might follow by that great party 
of patriots, soini times known as the African De- 
mocracy of the country. 

St, I am aware that the gentleman from Indi- 
ana, the other day, filed a caveat, on the principle 



of popular sovereignty — or upon bis " improve- 
ment," and I hardly know which. The improve- 
ment, if that is what is intended, the committee will 
recollect, was, that the people of his State did not 
understand popular sovereignty till after the last 
presidential election. I question whether this is 
patentable, for I doubt both its '^ 7ioveltj and 
'•'■utility f'' and I think he might have saved him- 
self all trouble in t!ie premises, so far as this side 
of the House is concerned, for I know of i.o one 
hero who has any ambition to be the champion of 
such a monstrosity as this popular sovereignty has 
shown itself to be, as defined and illustiated by the 
Democratic party for the last four years. No, sir, 
we are none of us, I trust, "ambitious for- ridi- 
cule," none of us "absolutely candidates f)r dis- 
grace," as we should most a suredly attain, were 
we to attempt the championship of this hybrid. 
No, sir ; but we propose to hold you to the letter 
and spirit of the bond. Give to these people 
what you promised, for the contract canceled in 
which they were to be benefitted. " Give them 
the bond." 

Mr. Chairman, the whole argument of the mes- 
sage seeks to establish the wickedness of the peo- 
ple of Kansas in resisting the usurpers of her gov- 
ernment ; but it attributes their wrongheadedncss to 
their devotion to the Topeka constitution, and not 
to a fixed and settled determination not to sul^mit 
to be ruled by a foreign, invading force. This 
drift of the raess^ige is easily accounted f)r by the 
fact that its author was ignorant of the history of 
events in the Territory prior to the Topeka con- 
vention. Had he been as well veised in that his- 
tory as the members of this House, he would 
never have fallen into this " grave error ;" but he 
would have seen in their action much to admire, 
and less to condemn. It has been suggested, by 
one who believes in " compromises," that the sta- 
tute of limitation should, by common consent, be 
allowed to apply to the Piesident's recollection of 
facts prior to the Topeka convention. 

But the President's remedy for the existing dif- 
ficulties is not only a remedy, but a punishment, 
upon those offending citizens of Kansas ; and, sir, 
I respectfully suggest that the punishment is vastly 
disproportionate to the crime alleged. To force 
upon an unwilling and patriotic people a constitu- 
tion that they loathe and abhor in all its detail, for 
the crime of loving another as much as they loathe 
this, is cruelty, is tyranny, is despotism. 

Sir, the President dojs not seem to realize that 
he charged a whole people with crime. If it be 
true that the people of Kansas are rebels against 
tlie Constitulion and laws of the United Spates, why 
has he not crushed it out? lias it been for want 
of a disposition? He has certainly shown a zeal 
worthy of a better cause, in sustaining the govern- 
ment of the usurpers. Has it been for want of 
means? He tells you himself that he has detained 
the United States troops in Kansas as a posse 
coviitatus, to put down rebellion, and we all know 
he has exposed a small number of the bravest 
men that ever bore arms to the frosts and famine 
of a Rocky Mountain winter, as well as to annihi- 
lation by -the Mormons of Utah. He has not at- 
tempted it simply beciuse he could find no cir- 
cumstances upon which to hang a specious justifi- 
cation of such action. Why does not the Pre'si- 



dent bring them to trial for their treason? Sir, I 
am here reminded of a passage which occurs in 
the speech of Burke on tJe conciliations of the 
colonies, delivered in the British House of Com- 
mons, March 22, 1115. George III. made sub- 
stantially the same complaint against the people 
of the colonies that the President now makes 
against the people of Kansas, One of the modes 
proposed by the Ministry, in the name of the 
King, to dispose of this spirit of rebellion, was, to 
prosecute it in its overt acts, as criminal. In an- 
swer to this proposition, Mr. Burke said : 

" At this proposition I must pause a moment. The 
thing seems a great deal too big for my ideas of juris- 
prudence. It should seem, to my concciTing of such 
matters, that there is a very wide difference in reason 
and policy, between the mode of proceeding on the 
irregular conduct of scattered individuals, or even 
ot bands of men, who disturb from time to time the 
State, and the civil dissensions which may, from time 
to time, on great questions, agitate the several com- 
mimities which compose a great empire. It looks to 
me to be narrow and pedantic to apply the ordinary 
ideas of criminal justice to this great contest. I do 
not know the method of dra^'ing up an indictment 
against a whole j>eople. I cannot insult and ridicule 
a whole people. 1 am not ripe to pass sentence on 
the gravest public bodies, intrusted with magistracies 
of great authority and dignity, and charged with the 
safety of their fellow^-citizeils upon the same title 
that I am. I really think that for w'ise men this is 
not judicious; for sober men, not decent; for micds 
tinctured with humanity, not mild and merciful." 

Sir, I commend these views, so sound, so just, 
so patriotic, so statesmanlike, to the President and 
his advisers; to the great party with a hitherto 
invincible name, I commend these sentiments, and 
I warn them not to push these people till endur- 
ance shall cease to be a virtue. The people of 
Kansas are called rebels and traitors by those high 
in authority, with a readiness that seems to argue 
but slight obHquity of political action. So were 
the men of the colonial period, and they were 
aterapted to be dragooned into submission. On 
the Istol October, 1768, two regiments of British 
regulars were landed in Boston: to do what? To 
protect the royal Governor, to aid him in exe- 
cuting the laws. For two years, now, the regulars 
of the United States have been in Kansas to pro- 
tect — not a royal Governor, but a presidential 
Governor ; to aid him in executing the laws. What 
laws ? In the first instance, the laws forced upon 
the colonies, against their consent, and without 
their representation ; in the last laws passed by a 
usurping Legislature, elected by fraud and violence, 
and in which the people of the Territory were not 
represented. 

Sir, the people of Kansas are termed a lawless 
and order-hating people, because they refuse sub- 
mission to the government of a foreign invader ; 
but, to me, their quiet, their patience, their hoping 
on and hoping still, amid all their discouragements 
is amazing. There is but a single instance in our 
country's history that affords a parallel, and that 
instance is found in the patience, endurance, for- 
titude, and indomitable courage of the people of 
Boston, from the landing of the British soldiery 
in her streets to the firing of the first gun that 
ushered in the morning of the Revolution. The 
people of Kansas can well afford to be both patient 
and long-suffering in the cause of great constitu- 



tional and inalienable rights ; for their fathers have 
covered their names with immortal glory in the 
same cause; and it is but right and natural that the 
children should imitate the parents and share their 
glory. 

Sir, the national Administration has arrayed 
itself against the people, and with their invaders, 
usurpers, and tyrants — against a people always 
patient, patriotic and peaceful ; and with their in- 
vaders always rapacious, domineering and insolent. 
Not only has the Chief of this national Adminis- 
tration taken this ground in his recent message, 
but practically in his appointments to territorial 
offices. What man, sympathizing wilh the great 
mass of the citizens of Kansas, has ever received 
a commission atNthe hands of the Executive? Not 
one. What pcnaltii has been meted out to the 
invaders of their seil, and that great palladium of 
popular liberty, the ballot-box? They, sir, have 
been the recipients of Executive favor and patron- 
age! Their usurped authority and power have 
been confirmed by the Executive edict, enforced 
by the cannon and bayonets of the Federal troops : 
all this has been done on the soil yet wefc with the 
blood of the martyrs of the Revolution — on the 
soil consecrated to popular liberty, and sealed by 
the death of its heroes. And, sir, the President 
fully indorses and defenda the shameless frauds 
against the people, by promptly discharging from 
office the men who expose them. 

In a controversy of this character — involving, as 
it does, all that honest liberty-loving men hold 
dear — I plapt myself o.i the side of the people, and 
join them in their "holy war" against this giant 
iniquity, against this high-handed wrong; on the 
side of a luhole people; a people of free white men, 
highly intelligent, cultivated, and patriotic, going 
from all the Stales of the Union to plant the insti- 
tutions of peace for themselves and their children, 
and desiring only to be secured in the simple en- 
joyments of peace and tranquility in their domestic 
pursuits. With thesa people I choose to cast my 
lot. I know that against me and them is arrayed 
the colossal power of the State; but I also know 
that had not the Chief of the Administration been 
smitten with a judicial blindness, this could not have 
occurred. 

To propitiate the genius of slavery propagand- 
ism, the Government is now engaged in the hope- 
less and fruitless effort, not alone to fasten slavery 
upon an unwilling people, but in accomplishing 
this to strike out the very foundation stones from 
the edifice of republican liberty. 

Sir, what is the President's argument upon which 
he relies, to meet and silence the actnai existing 
facts, as touching the will of the people of the 
Territory; the returns of elections, and these re- 
turns made by whom ? by whom ? I ask you, sir, 
do you believe one word of their report? do they 
not stand before you perjured in the foulest man- 
ner? does the civilized world credit for a moment 
the atrociously fraudulent returns made by these 
men? Does the President believe it? Nay, sir, 
I will not do him this injustice; and yet upon these 
elections returns he relies for a justification of the 
great wrong he is now pressing upon this House to 
consummate against this people. Nay, he is not 
even content with this, but demands that the peo- 
ple shall be made slaves, to it and lyii; and sorry 



am I to =ay it, but it appears to me that his parti- 
sans in this House, are only too anxious to second 
the demand, and carry out tlie high behests of the 
President. Sir, the President Icnows — none bet- 
ter than he — tliat this wliole base progeny was 
conceived in fraud and unscriipuUms violence; 
that being shapen in sin, and brought forth in in- 
iquity, the child justifies its parentage, though it 
does not justify the President in attempting to lorce 
its paternity upon a people whose rights have not 
only been violated but trampled under foot by this 
Executive bantling. 

Sir, it is not true, as the Presidentand his friends 
hold, that the ballot-box is more sacred than the 
rights it guards ; it is not true, as the friends of the 
Administration would have us believe, that the 
Jormal papers, which place bad men in office — 
whether these papers are true or false, whether 
obtained by usurpi>tion or by fair dealing — are more 
sacred than the dearest and most cherished rights 
ol man ; and yet the President so reasons in his 
message. Nay, more ; that obedience to these for- 
mal papers, whether the true or false, is "law and 
order;" and disobedience and oppression he charac- 
terizes as "rebellion" and "treason against the 
Constitution and laws of the United States." A 
whole people to rebel! against what? Why, against 
themselves, the sovereigns, of course! Nine tenths 
of the people guilty of treason! treason against 
what? Why, treason against the government, of 
course. What government? Why the usurped 
government — a government — a government of in- 
vaders and niarauders, against which the people 
have alvcays protested, and to which they never 
will yield obedience. 

But, Mr. Chairman, the aspect of the question 
before the country to-day is significant in another 
point of view. The national Administration, by 
its present position, not only seeks to fasten sla- 
very upon the Territory and future State of Kan- 
sas, but it also seeks to make slavery a permanent 
element in our national politics. 

All undeistand that two different systems of labor 
prevail in this country, and that the division is 
entirely sectional — the South alone employing un- 
paid black slave labor, and the North employing 
paid white labor. Between these two systems there 
is a natural and eternal antagonism ; and as labor 
is the source of all wealth — national and individiial 
— each of these two systems is struggling for ascend- 
ency, and for the fostering care of Government. It 
has been somewhat frequently observed of late, 
that "this Government was made for white men ;" 
but, sir, there is a large number of persons in this 
land today who would like some better proof of 
this than nak(d assertion. So thoroughly has the 
African Democratic party committed itself to the 
interests of slave labor, and against free labor, that 
there has come to be a prevailing sentiment that 
no other interest can gain a respectful hearing even, 
at the hands of this Administration. 

For what purpose has the President sanctioned 
the frauds and wrongs committed against the 
people of Kansas, but to force the institution of 
African slavery upon them ? Why, but to give 
that vast domain to be tilled and cultivated by men 
posses;<ed of "no rights that white men are bound 
to respect," and with no motive, but one six feet 
long, with a cracker attached to the end of it ? 



Sir, I dislike to arraign the motives of men, but 
upon no other hypothesis can I account ior the 
action of this Administration. The white laborers 
of this country have an imperishable interest in 
this question ; it is nothing less than whether the 
unoccupied territories of this country shall be given 
over for the benefit of a class of men who own the 
laborer and the fruits of his hands ; or whether it; 
shall be developed by the skill and toil of the free 
laborer, and shall be an inheritance to him, and his 
children after him, for an everlasting posses- 
sion? 

Nor is this all ; for, involved in this issue, is the ._ 
great question of the rights and dignity of labor, 
as a part of the political economy of the country 
and of the world. None better know than the 
present Administration, thatthe fastening of slave- 
ry upon Kansas would diminish the cash value of 
its real estate one half, and from this depression 
she would never recover ; and that giving the peo- 
ple the rights guarantied to them by the organic 
act, would double its value. .Nor is this all. The 
wealth and poioer of any nation is measured by the 
value of its productive industry ; and none can 
doubt, who has paid the sliahtest attention to the 
statistics on this subject, that free labor is more 
than twice as productive as slave labor. If any 
doubt this, I commend to them the statistics of the 
census returns of 1850. 

Notwithstanding this array of reasons and facts, 
which should be a guide to prudent statesmen, we 
find this Administration fully committed to the 
policy oi forcing the institution of slavery, with 
all its attendant evils, against the remonstrances 
of its people, against their direct vote at the ballot- 
box to the contrary, against all the forms of rep- 
utable supplication, even against the admonitions 
and warnings of those best qualified to judge in 
the matter, that civil war will follow the despotic 
act, and the plains and prairies of Kansas will 
smoke with the warm blood of our fellow-citizens, 
shed by their brother's hands ; in spite of all this, 
the Administration rushes madly upon this policy. 
What infatuation! What madness ! What folly! 
And for what is all this to be hazarded ? To give 
Kansas to slave labor, and thereby shut out free 
labor from the State. Is this an object worthy of 
a great statesman — one who has spent a large por- 
tion of a long life in the public service ? 

Does this Democratic party know that labor has 
rights which it is bound to protect? Does this 
party know that there is such a ptinciple as a De- 
mocracy of wealth, and that it is labor ? 

It was a remark of Samuel Adams, if it is not 
incendiary and sectional to quote him here, that 
" where private rights were infringed, there tyr- 
anny began." By applying this rule to the treat- 
ment bestowed upon the people of Kansas by this 
Administration, some light may be thrown upon 
the character of the executive intervention. The 
Administration have systematically trampled upon 
every right of this people ; and whenever and 
wherever its agents have refused to carry out its 
mandates, the decree, remorseless as death, has 
gone forth, " off with his head ;" so much for 
ileeder, so much for Shannon, so much for Geary, 
so much for Walker, and so much for Stanton ; and 
unless this bill passes before the next session of 
Congress, I predict yovT will Sjqe General Deuver 



6 



trad£;ing home with hif: h'ead in a basket. Why, 
sir, Kansas has become a Golgotha of Democratic 
Governors; for the head of each of those sent 
there, is, without an exception, left to bleach and 
whiten on the plains of Kansas. To such an ex- 
tent is this carried, and so true is it, that it has be- 
come "that country from whose bourne no (politi- 
cal) traveler returns." And for aught that appears 
to the contrary in the President's message, this may 
be op.e strong reason in his mind lor urging the 
admission of Kansas— thus preventing the deci- 
mation of the party by destroying its Kansas Gov- 
ernors to such an extent that the Republicans will 
have an easy victory over it in 1860. 

But, sir, this is Ibreign to my purpose; for the 
subject, in this free land, of arraying a great party, 
and that party the reigning one, against the free 
lai)or of the country, and fosteiing in its stead 
slave labor, thus reaiingan hereditary aii-itociacy, 
is too serious in its consequences to be trifled with, 
b<at is one to be treated with solemnity commensu- 
rate with its importance. Its consequences are 
not confined to to-day, or this generation of men ; 
but tliey are to be far-reaching and absorbing, and 
in the end overwhelming. It is nothing less than 
to Africanize the Government in all its relations. 
Gentlemen who make wry faces at the Lecompton 
constitution, admitting it to be an atrocious out- 
rage and fraud upon the people, but conclude to 
shut their eyes and swallow it, for the purpose of 
ending all further controversy, will have ample 
time for repentance before the agitation ends. 

And now, I ask of the conservative men of the 
South if they are willing that the institution of 
slavery shall take this additional load upon itself, 
in this day and generation ? Is it not enough that 
it has concentrated upon itself the world's unmiti- 
gated scorn, but it must needs take upon itself the 
additional burden of seconding the Administra- 
tion in its crusade against the free labor of the 
country ? Are you, the conservative slaveholders 
of the country, willing to allow the institutions of 
your seciion to become the cause and instrument 
of the further aggrandizement of this Administra- 
tion — of building up and further extending the 
power and rule of the African Democracy of this 
country, who seek by their policy to Africanize its 
productive industry ? I tell gentlemen plainly, that 
while chivalry once had a naxie and a prestige^ yet 
in these African-Democratic hands its gold has 
become dim and its luster is faded ; and unless it 
is speedily rescued, its glory will have departed 
forever. Sir, the civilized world cannot, and will 
not, look on complacently, and see this great and 
monstrous wrong consummated upon this people; 
and their anathemas andexecrations will be hurled 
against iheinstitntion in whose name and ia whose 
behalf it is perpetrated. 

The disposition of this and the past Adminis- 
tration has been clearly manifested in regard to 
the affairs in the Territory of Kansas, by the his- 
torical fact, shown by special messages and public 
documents, as well as its secret intrigues, that it 
has ut all times taken sides with the usurpers of its 
Government, and against Governors of its own 
appointment. And, Mr. Chairman, it is a remark- 
able fact, that every sober, decent man, who has 
gone out to Kansas in behalf of the Government, 
Las been sustained by the people, and as uni- 



f )rmly destroyed by the national Executive. Look 
at another fact upon the very surface of the 1 st 
message of the President. The complaints agaiast 
the people by Governor Walker, on his arrival in 
the Territory, before he had had any opportunity 
to become acquainted with the disturbing causes 
in operation there, are all elaborately quoted by 
the President ; while his maturer views, his riper 
judgment, made up against his prejudices and his 
preconceived opinions, but forced from him by 
stubborn facts, that transpired under hiaown vision 
— these are all suppressed ; to these the President 
is oblivious. 

But, sir, the President goes further in his efforts 
to sustain the usurpers of the government in Kan- 
sas, and in their aid to drive out the free laborers 
of that Territory, to make way for s'ave labor; 
thus seeking to Africanize the Territories, and 
drive out the free man. Not satisfied with throw- 
ing the 'Aptire weight of his influence and patron- 
age into the scale against the rights of the people, 
he invokes the aid of the Federal judiciary, hoping 
thereby to seal the conclusion and arrest the argu- 
ment. The very manner with which he brings it 
forward in his message, reveals the inward satis- 
faction in which he indulg(3s in having ut his hand 
so potential an auxiliary. He says : 

" It has been solemnly adjudged, by the highest 
judicial tribunal known to our laws, that slavery ex- 
ists in Kansas by virtue of the constitution of the 
United LUates." 

And his feeble echoes here and through the 
country, have reiterated the same grave charge 
against the Supreme Court of the United States. 
Sir, 1 am no lawyer, but some of my constituents 
are ; and with the argument of one of them, I re- 
ply, and utterly deny that any such question has 
ever been adjudicated by the Supreme Court. No 
such question has yet been presented to that court 
for its consideration ; and I respectfully submit 
whether it is competent, nay, whether it is possi- 
ble, for any tribunal to decide any q*iestion not 
presented ; or is it possible and competent for a 
court of law to decide upon any question that may 
suggest itself to any of its members during its sit- 
ting, whether of law or politics? I take it, sir, 
and to my poor comprehension it is entirely clear, 
that the court will travel from its jurisdiction and 
functions when it attempts to consider or decide 
any other question than that presented by the case. 
And I respectfully submit that the existence of 
slavery in the Territories, by a " virtue" of our 
Constitution, has never been presented to the 
court. I do not deny, nor dou'it, but the court 
have given an opinio7i that such is the fact ; but 
that opnion is not a decision, and is worth just as 
much — and no more, under the circumstances — 
than the opinion of the same number of respecta- 
ble lawyers touching the same fact. The dictum, 
of the court is a very different affair from a decis- 
ion — the one is binding until it is reversed, the 
other simply an intimation of what their decision 
would be were the question before them in a legal 
condition to be adjudicated. 

Mr. Chairman, this is not the first time the Presi- 
dent has quoted this court to sustain him in his 
position, in taking sides with the usurpers against 
the people of Kansas. He refers to it in nearly the 
same language ui bis letter to some geatlemen ia 



Connecticut, last September; and this, to me, con- 
stituted one of the characteristics of that reinaik- 
able letter, for I believe it is the first time in the 
history of the Government, when a President of the 
Republic has deemed it expedient to reply to a 
petition of the citizens, and to improve the occasion 
to deliver them a lecture on patriotism in general 
and their duties in particular. B^itdec/ustibusuon 
est duputandum is as true now as when uttered for 
the first time. 

The doctrine of the President, as drawn from 
his message, and I believe of the whole African 
Democratic party today is, that slavery exi.-ts in 
all our Territories until they are organized into 
States. This doctrine has the merit, at least, of 
being novel and entirely contrary to the views of 
all American statesmen, till withia a very recent 
period. 

And, sir, I must be allowed to inquire by what 
law slavery exists in our Territories ? and what con- 
sequences arc to flow from this doctrine ? Slavery 
is not an abstraction, but, as the logicians say, is a 
thing in the concrete. The institution exists in 
this country by virtue of local law. All its powers 
are given and all its features are molded by munic- 
ipal law. The master has no power over his slave 
but what the law gives him. Slavery exists no- 
where by the laws of Congress ; and in our slave 
States the local laws confer but very limited powers 
upon this species of property. The general right 
of property in an animal implies the right to take 
its life for the convenience or luxury of its owner; 
but in none of the States of this country has the 
master of a slave the right to take his life for such 
reasons. In various other respects this right of 
property in the slave is limited by the local law. 
Nor do any two of the slaveholding States perfectly 
agree in this limitation; for in some, while the 
power of the master is nearly absolute, in others 
it is contracted, and the slave enjoys more freedom. 
Hence slavery is a very different thing in some of 
the States from what it is in others ; and the Legis- 
lature of any State has power to make the difference 
still greater. Property, or what the master claims 
as such in his slave, consists of the aggregate of 
the powers which the law of the State gives him 
over the slave. 

If such is its nature, by what law does it exist 
in the Territories "by virtue of the Constitution?" 
Of course it does not by virtue of the territorial 
laws ; for it is a part of this doctrine that the pow- 
ers of the Territory have no control over it what- 
ever. It cannot be interfered with till the Territory 
becomes a State; and, if the territorial authorities 
could interfere with it at all, they could abolish it 
altogether, and thus annul the Constitution ! Nor, 
either, does it by virtue of any law of Congress ; 
for it is another part of this doctrine that Congress 
has no power over it, and this is equally necessary 
to the principle or notion ; for, if Congress can in- 
crease or diminish the aggregate of the master's 
powers over his slave, it may abolish them alto- 
gether; and then what becomes of the " virtue of 
the Constitution." 

The question, then, comes back, by what laws 
the relation of master and slave is established and 
regulated in the Territories? Does the President 
mean that, "by virtue of the Constitution" of the 
United States the law^ of the several slaveholding 



States on this subject extend all over the public 
domain? Indeed, he can mean nothing else, for 
there is no other horn left to the dilemma. Tho 
doctrine of the President will be better understood 
and appreciated by stating a case. Suppose a slave- 
holder, say from South Carolina, removes with his 
slave to the Territory of Kansas. Ho there, in the 
exercise of the right over his slave given him by 
the law of tho State from which he emigrated, 
whips his slave, and is prosecuted for assault and 
battery. If the trial takes place in Lawrence, most 
likely some northern man will preside upon the 
bench, and New England men will fill the jury panel. 
The whipping with a slave whip is admitted, and 
he makes his defense. He states no law of Con- 
gress, or of the Territory, that authorized, him in 
tills act; but he refers the court to the law of 
South Carolina. 

By the President's theory this law of South 
Carolina is to prevail, for the reason that it is one 
of the constituent elements of his right of proper- 
ty ; and it must follow him into the Territory, and 
be administered there. If he take the life of his 
slave he may be punished for it ; but the reason 
is, not because of the prevalence of any territorial 
law, for that would be unconstitutional, but be- 
cause the law of South Carolina does not confer 
this i)ower upon a master. He may compel his 
slave, though a member of the Christian church, 
to live with him in open violation of a special com- 
mand of the Decalogue ; and yet no territorial law 
can prevent it. His slaves may live in open viola- 
tion of the laws of Cliristian marriage in spite of 
the laws of the Territory — for, by the laws of his 
State, this institution is forbidden them, or practi- 
cally denied them. Even Christian law-makers 
hold that that is a Christian law which takes away 
the right of Christian marriage from the members 
of the same church with themselves. And this is 
the complexion to which wo have come at last ; 
and judges and jurors from the free States are 
bound to administer these laws brought to thii Ter- 
ritories from the slave States. 

If a master from Maryland buys a slave of a 
master from Alabama, and he in turn sells to a 
man from Kentucky, the law of which State shall 
regulate his right of property in the Territory ? and 
if, further, after the master left the State, the law 
is changed so as to abridge or otherwise alter his 
right of property in his slave, how would it affect 
his powers over him ? Or is the will of the master 
the only limit of the master's power in the Terri- 
tory? These questions might be multiplied, did 
time permit. The country will recollect that when 
the Territorial Legislature (so called) passed laws 
abridging the freedom of speech, it was approved 
here by the Democratic members of Congress. 
Possibly this doctrine of the "virtue of the Con- 
stitution" was then in process of incubation, and 
their instincts led them to the conclusion that this 
la^ was necessary for the protection of this species 
of property, and was carried there by virtue of 
the Constitution. The President is only explicit 
on the laws of slavery being carried into the Ter- 
ritory, and here he is gratuitously so. Whether 
the laws regulating the sale of lottery tickets in 
Maryland are also carried into the Territories, the 
President does not inform us; probably, however, 
it is only those relating to slavery. 



But, sir, if this is true, then, in its most offensive 
sense, is it true that slaveiy is mtioial and liberty 
sectional and local ; for this doctrine goes beyond 
the Territories. It is the doctrine by which Vir- 
ginia is to-day attempting to establish the right of 
her slave-traders to drive their chained gangs 
through the city of New York on their way to 
Texas ; and she expects the court to establish that 
right. It is the doctrine on which Passmore Wil- 
liamson was imprisoned in Pennsylvania, for telling 
a slave woman, whom her master had brought into 
the State, that she was free. Under this doctrine 
slavery exists aa m\ich on the ocean as on the land. 
Wherever ourflag floats, there slavery is " by virtue 
of the Constitution." Under this dectrine of the 
President, the slave may be sent not only from Vir- 
ginia to Texas by sea, by way of New York, but 
may be sent to any of the ports of the free States 
as a sailor, without impairing the rights of the 
master. And if this be so, why not import them 
diiect from Cuba as well as Virginia? and \\hy not 
from Africa as well as either? Give the master 
property in a slave en ship-board in any southern 
port, and, no matter where he came from, any law 
that should interfere with it would be as invalid 
as the Mis5ouri compromise. 

This I understand to be the practical working 
of the doctrine announced by the Administration; 
and to establish this absurdity, they are not only 
M-illing to trample under foot the rights of the peo- 
ple ot Kansas, but to make them slaves to their 
despotic will. Nay, sir, to accomplish this he in- 
vokes the prompt and efiBcient aid of the faithful, 
backed by all the blandishments of official power 
and patronage, and threatens excommunication 
from the pale of the Democratic party, in case of 
refusal to comply. Who can hesitate under such 
circumstances ? None, who can 

" crook the pregnant hinges of the knee, 

Where thrift may follow fawning." 

But the President assures us that the admission 
of Kansas as a State, under the Lecompton con- 
stitution, will allay the agitation of the country ! I 
did not understand that the question of "allaying 
the agitation" was the one on which we, as the 
Representatives of the people, were called upon to 
act. I had supposed that the question was, whether 
the people of Kansas should be allowed "to form 



. ,^ LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

I their own mstiti -..niniiiiiMiiiiiBiraiiii 

besides, I have n< 
that for this very) 
wa.^ repealed. W« 

days' clamor all v imn pi miininiii" ••<•""■ - « , 

this step only was a 0|^g 085 211 ^ 

agitation and fana , oneeping over 

the North. This was the prophecy of 1854. Look 
at the facts. In 1862, the distinguished Senator 
from New Hampshire received some hundred thou- 
sand votes, more or less, for the Presidency ; and 
at the inauguration of the man from New Hamp- 
shire, who was elected by an almost unprecedented 
unanimity, we were told that the questions that 
had so long agitated the publis mind were happily 
put to rest, and that nothing should be tolerated, 
during his term of office, that should tend to rouse 
them into action. But what was the number of 
the vote that tells of agitation, as recorded in 1856? 
One half million! How wonderfully the prophecy 
is fulfilled ! Verily, " he who ventures to pro- 
phecy should have an army at his command," if 
he intends to sustain the character of a prophet. 

The President, in conclusion, invokes the ad- 
mission of Kansas, because he fears a dissolution 
of the Union if this is refused. This, sir, has been 
so often threatened that it has lost its terrors, even 
to the "old ladies of both sexes." Why, sir, this 
warning falls "like a thrice-told tale upon the dull 
ear of a drowsy man ;" there is no longer terror 
in these threats. Besides, if any portion of this 
Uuion feel so much aggrieved because the Con- 
gress of the United States refuse to force a Terri- 
tory into the Union against the expressed wishes 
of a large majority of its inhabitants, and under a 
constitution that can never command popular re- 
spect — nor popular obedience — then I, for one, say 
let them go. I repeat it, sir, let them go. So far 
from allowing this menace to influence us in adjust- 
ing this question, I, for one, would insist upon its 
withdrawal ; and, in case of a refusal, act in direct 
contravention of it. Sir, I can endure anything 
better than consent to act in my representative 
capacity under the influence of a menace. If the 
President fears these threats and menace, it may 
be proper that he allow them to influence him ; but 
the immediate Representatives of the people must 
occupy loftier ground. 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 

BUELL & BLAN CHARD PRINTERS. 
1858. 



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